"Beg your pardon, ma'am; sorry to wake you," said Timmins, with a very flushed face; "but I can't do nothing with that young one, though I have tried my best. I went up stairs to wash her all over, according to rule, before I put on the school uniform; and when I began to strip her, she pulled her clothes all about her, and held them tight, and cried, and took on, saying that nobody ever saw her all undressed but her mother, and all that sort of thing."
"The affected little prude! and to break up my nap, too!" said Mrs. Markham. "I'll teach her—come along, Timmins."
True enough; there stood Rose in the corner, as Timmins had said; her dress half torn off in the scuffle, leaving exposed her beautifully-molded shoulders and back, while with her little hands she clutched the remaining rags closely about her person. With her dilated nostrils, flushed cheeks, and flashing eyes, she made a tableau worth looking at.
"Come here," hissed Mrs. Markham, in a tone that made Rose's flesh creep.
Rose moved slowly toward her.
"Take off those rags—every one of them."
"I can not," said Rose; "oh, don't make me; I can not."
"Take them off, I say. What! do you mean to resist me?" (as Rose held them more tenaciously about her;) and grasping her tightly by the wrist, she drew her through a long passage-way, down a steep pair of stairs, and pushing her into a dark closet, turned the key on her and strode away.
"Obstinate little minx," she said, as she passed Timmins, on her return to her rocking-chair and to her nap.
"Hark! Mrs. Markham! Mrs. Markham!—what's that groan? Hadn't I better open the door and peep in?"